It was hard to tell which was louder Friday: The blasted thud of a double off the bat of Alejandro Kirk or the angry boos that chased Devin Williams off the mound.
If the Yankees did not have a true closer problem before, they do now after Williams coughed up another game, charged with his first blown save in the Yankees’ 4-2, series-opening loss to the Blue Jays in front of a sellout crowd of 46,081 who turned on the prized offseason addition.
Given a one-run lead in what had been a well-pitched game, Williams entered for the ninth inning, faced three batters and retired none.
He fell behind George Springer, 3-1 before Springer singled.
He fell behind Andrés Giménez 2-0 before plunking him with a 2-2 fastball.
He fell behind Kirk 1-0 before trying his vaunted changeup — a pitch Kirk might have been waiting for, given how he crushed the airbender over Trent Grisham’s head in center to drive in two and drive Williams out of the game.
“Nothing is working right now,” said Williams, whose ERA is an astounding 11.25 after his first 10 appearances in pinstripes. “All I can do is continue to work.”
It is possible he will begin to work in lower-leverage situations after allowing seven runs in the time it has taken him to record his last three outs.
For the first time in this young season, Aaron Boone declined to definitively call Williams his closer.
“We’ll see,” the manager said after the Yankees (15-11) dropped their fourth in six games. “We’ll talk through that stuff. This is raw right now.”
Williams’ command is a problem, as he continues to fall behind in counts.
His standing among the fan base is a problem, many players before him succumbing to the boos that often more frustrate than motivate.
Even before Kirk’s double, some of the crowd chanted for Luke Weaver, who remained in the bullpen as the lead disappeared.
“Everyone has their opinions,” Williams said when asked about the Weaver chants.
The Yankees sent one season of Nestor Cortes and many seasons of infield prospect Caleb Durbin for a shutdown righty who was an All-Star in 2022 and ’23 and pitched to a 1.25 ERA last season.
At his best, Williams might be the nastiest pitcher in baseball, with a near-unhittable pitch.
He has not approached that level this season and has pitched just two clean innings in his 10 appearances.
There is a large gap between the expectations and competition level when leaving the Brewers for the Yankees.
“It’s new. It’s New York. It’s big. It’s a little different,” said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who faced Williams plenty when they were both in the National League. “But I know my guy. … I know what he got. I went out there and told him, like, ‘Hey, this is your moment right here. … We all believe in you.’ ”
Williams said his confidence level is fine, but it would be understandable if he did not believe in himself at the moment.
It is difficult to recover when you cannot pinpoint the source of the problem.
“I wish there was an easy answer, but I’m not really sure,” Williams said about his struggles. “It’s not a good feeling not being able to get the job done for the team.”
Williams — and Mark Leiter Jr., who came in and allowed an RBI single to Addison Barger — flushed a lead that arose not from a big hit but from a big sacrifice fly off the bat of Austin Wells in the eighth.
The Yankees turned 10 hits and four walks into just two runs, leaving 11 on base and going 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
“That’s back-to-back games where we haven’t thrown that knockout punch,” Boone said.
The Yankees’ pitching kept them in the game, beginning with the strongest work of Carlos Carrasco’s season.
In his sixth start — which he entered with a 6.53 ERA — the 38-year-old kept the Blue Jays off balance over five strong, scoreless innings.
After just 67 pitches in two turns through the order from Carrasco, Boone removed him from a scoreless game so Tim Hill could face Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Guerrero greeted Hill with a homer that gave the Jays the game’s first run.
The Yankees responded in the seventh, when Oswaldo Cabrera bounced an RBI single past the infield.
That and Wells’ sac fly would represent all the offense in a game they ended up needing more.
“It’s something I’ve been battling for most of the season,” Williams said of his command. “It’s getting pretty frustrating.”
